Slipping Into Paradise II

Having perused this (afore-mentioned) delightfully odd little book, I wanted to share a few excerpts. :j

"New Zealand has been isolated from the rest of the landmasses of the world for millions of years now. Jared Diamond..has said, "New Zealand is as close as we will get to the opportunity to study life on another planet.""

(1986)"David Lange, New Zealand Labor party prime minister, was asked to argue"nuclear weapons are morally indefensible" at a debate at the Oxford Union. His official advisors were appalled, thinking(correctly) that he would offend both the United States and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government. His opponent? None other than Jerry Falwell... founder of the Moral Majority. In the debate, Lange said, "I got the warmest response when I referred to American efforts to make an example of New Zealand. We were being told by the United States that we we could not decide for ourselves how to defend ourselves...That, I said, was exactly the totalitarianism we were fighting against. The audience roared." Lange won the debate and returned to New Zealand a national hero."

"In a 1975 book, Crops and Man, the late Jack Harlan, perhaps America's most distinguished botanist, wrote that "man is by definition the first and primary weed under whose influence all other weeds have evolved." I like the idea of humans as urweed, the uberweed...Displacement is in our very nature...We are in a constant state of elbowing our way into a place we were not intended to inhabit. We conquer, we ravage, we destroy, and once in awhile we learn...how to live in relative peace with species who were already there."

"This profound dis-ease, in England, in Germany, in France, in America, and just about everywhere else, was not something I have ever felt in New Zealand....Perhaps it is because the more glaring faults of the other countries are absent here:The government is relatively benign, unlike America; intellectual life..is not fraudulant as it is in France...the cities are not crowded, dangerous, dirty or expensive, the way London is. I make it sound a little bit like Canada, I know. And truth to tell, New Zealand is much like Canada[http://www.wildcanada.net/frontpage.asp?a=ac]: somewhat dull, slightly lackluster, a bit behind the times, lacking a certain sense of colorfulness, and yet decent, reliable, kindly, honest. If Vancouver had more sunshine, I would consider living there. If Toronto were in the tropics, I would definitely think it worth considering. But when you take into account that New Zealand has all of the better traits of Canada, and yet is an island set in the Pacific Ocean and is, in many ways, a Polynesian island culture, you become suddenly aware that you are living in a most remarkable place."

"So in what sense can I call New Zealand home after having lived here just three years? the answer came to me the other day when somebody told me he "owned" the river in front of his house. That was pretty funny. I was with a Maori friend, and he thought it was funny, too. How do you own a river? Come to think of it, how do you own any property?... It will be here long after you and I are gone. We lay claim to things that cannot be laid claim to. These pemanant natural objects mock us. I don't know about (a) rock, but I'm pretty sure that the tree has a life of its own, a biography in fact. The pond is teeming with life, over which I have no control. The emotion that these natural objects arouse in me are truly mine. Those I own. Those belong to me. But those same natural objects arouse different emotions in other people. All those emotions are theirs to own as well. It doesn't matter if they have lived there all their life or just a day, they can still feel and be made to feel by their natural surroundings. Home is where we feel most deeply....
When we lose that connection, when we no longer feel anything for a place, we can say that it is no longer home. The greatest loneliness is being where you feel you do not belong. It is an odd sensation that can overcome a man(I speak deliberately here)just about anywhere."